house speaker john boehner says he believes they can reach a deal. >> i don't think anyone, on either side of the aisle under estimates the difficulty that faces us. but i do think the spirit of cooperation that you've seen over the last week from myself and my team, from democrats across the aisle, from the president, have created an atmosphere where i think that, i'm, i remain optimistic. i was born with a glass half-full. >> what i have told leaders privately as well as publicly, is that we can not afford to extend the bush tax cuts for the wealthy. what we can do is make sure that middle class taxes don't go up. 98% of americans are not going to see their taxes go up. 97% of small businesses are not going to see their taxes go up. if we get that in place, we are actually removing half of the fiscal cliff. martha: doug schoen, former pollster to president bill clinton. monica crowley, radio talk show host. both are fox news contributors and what i'm hearing through both of those quotes we're pretty much where we were the last time that the president and john boehner got together. t